Furry Friends Linky Par-tay!

Wow, as I wrap up my Sunday planning it suddenly occurred to me that most of us really only get one day off a week.  My Sunday goes like this (I'll bet yours looks similar)....church, nap, planning until bedtime.

It was a looooooooooooooooooooooooong week.  I came home Friday and C-RaShEd on the couch.    And here it is time for Monday again!  It's going to be a GREAT week!  <----being perky and positive.


You know I have to join the Furry Friends Linky Party hosted by Sandy at Soaring Through Second.  Go check her out!  She is having a giveaway AND is going to donate money to her favorite rescue for every new follower she gets.  Awesome!  I can't miss the opportunity to show off my furry girl.

This is Bella (and no she was not named after that whiner from the Twilight Books---don't get me started on that lol).

Bella is a rescue golden that I got when my sweet golden, Sarah, crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  She was 4 when I got her and she is an absolute dream.  I will always get rescue dogs now.  She is so smart that she gets trained without me knowing it!  Like she figured out right away that when I take off my bra I'm not leaving again.  If I come home and don't take off my bra, she follows me around hoping that she's going to get to go bye-bye (and to sulk when she doesn't get to).

This is bedtime..see if you can figure out where I sleep lol!

I have learned so much from her but the big thing is that there is nothing that a treat, a snuggle, and a nap can't solve.  Haha, amen Bella!

I worked on lots of things today, but I'm not ready to share all yet.  I must test drive them in the classroom first.  Our reading story this week is Fishing Bears.  This non-fiction text is one of my favorites in our series.  I made this go with it.  The pic cut off part of the lines for some reason.  I really need a class to learn how to do all of this right!  I'm winging it!

Get it here if you want it!  Bears Map

Good night all!  Have a mah-vel-ous Monday!

I'm a big kid now (with class pets)!

Evening, friends!

Gosh, the first day back after a break is tough!  It's amazing how quickly I forget that I can't go the bathroom any old time I want to.  My classroom is honestly and truly a football field away from the restroom.  The new teacher across the hall measured it, haha! So several times today I found myself doing the peepee dance myself, lol.  TMI I know, but y'all understand!  If you have a restroom in your room, be thankful!!  And am I the only one who needed a nap by 11am?

Anyhoo, my sweeties came in so wonderfully this morning showing off new clothes, missing teeth, and full of stories.  And hugs!  My bucket was overflowing by 8:15!  They immediately noticed the stack of new writing journals on my table and began begging for them.  This group really loves to write.

These aren't any old writing journals.  These are the I'm a Big Kid Now and Almost a Second Grader journals.  Haha, really just regular Mead composition books with wide ruled paper.  But it's REAL PAPER, people...not the paper with the chicken doesn't cross the road lines.  Paper like GROWN-UPS use!  Haha, we can sell it, can't we?

I let them free write, but since I model wrote about what I did over break all of them did too.  It.was.awesome.  Best writing all year!  I had to give 3 Class Dojo points to the class, it was that awesome.  They wrote and helped each other with lovely thoughtful words.  I took pictures but left the camera on the table of course.

They are also excited that we now have class pets...sort of.  As we grilled out for Easter yesterday, I noticed something moving on top of my pool cover.  Tadpoles!!  I was so excited until I realized how gross it is that frogs are developing on top of my pool, lmao!  We managed to catch 4 of them--2 big ones and 2 itty bitty ones.  They really are super cute.  My boys wanted to know if they could hold them.  Um....no...  Hopefully they won't kick the bucket like the fish always do.  I took pics of them too but that stinking camera didn't jump into my cart like it was supposed to do.  :-)

Thanks so much for the kind words about my rough start to spring break.  It got better.  My home office no longer looks like a paper bomb went off.  My flowerbeds are sans weeds and I can actually allow people to get inside my car now lol.  And I read 2 books! For pleasure, not for school!

Okay, time for DWTS and my last Reese egg until 2013.  I'm going to savor every last morsel.
Happy night and Tuesday!

Currently, Shoe Ho, and major SADNESS...

This is my first Currently!  Link up with Farley HERE

SPRING BREAK is HERE!!  Don't hate me, but I spent my first day of spring break in my pjs catching up on NCIS and Castle.  I haven't watched either since February.  I <3 Nathan Fillion.

I went out on a Woohoo Spring Break dinner with the girls on Friday.  3 Italian margaritas later and I was ready to shoe shop!  Um...I bought 4 pairs of shoes in 30 minutes so you can just call me the Shoe Ho.  I tried to post some pics but I'm lazy tonight.  Imagine 3 inch platforms with ankle strap--in black and taupe and RED!  I'm so tall in them!!  I may need an intervention from all the C.U.T.E shoes that are out for spring.

My spring break didn't start out well.  I got a text from a dear friend on Friday even before my last kiddo left. Her brother killed himself.  :-(  I just don't know what to say or do in these instances.  I have been texting her but haven't been to see her yet.  I'm terrible...and she was so awesome and was so THERE when my Daddy died.  I avoid bad things which is such a terrible flaw of mine.  This is not about me at all.  I am definitely going to see her tomorrow.  Say a prayer for her and her family please.

If you give a kid a pencil....

He's going to chew and eat it!  WHAT?  Yep, I have several kiddos that I lovingly refer to as my "woodchucks".  We have gone through more pencils this year than I have ever used.  The "To Be Sharpened" bucket is always full of half eaten, otherwise perfectly good pencils.  I can't help but say...."Hey, you woodchucks! Stop chucking that wood!!"  They don't get it but it cracks me up every time.

So I tried a new strategy this week.  On Monday, I gave each child a brand-new sharpened pencil with their name on it.  I told them that if they can show me this pencil on Friday and it has not been chewed or otherwise mauled, I will give them their very own mechanical lead pencil.  Ooooo, aaahhhh....insert Vanna White waving her hand over a beautiful new lead pencil.  I made it very clear that it was their responsibility to keep up with the pencil.  I would not be swayed by tears and excuses.  I was really surprised about how sweet they were about these pencils.  When they would find one, they would make sure it got back to its owner immediately.  This was amazing because other than that they have been grumpy with each other lately.  WE.NEED.SPRING.BREAK!!

Anyhoo...back to the pencils.  All but 5 were able to show me an intact pencil.  Some of my smarties had hidden it so they wouldn't take the chance of losing it.  I'm giving the other 5 another shot this week so hopefully they'll make it.

The Desk Fairy, Deskerella, also made an appearance this week.  Does the Desk Fairy visit your children?  I have an overall neat group this year so she was able to leave Pixie Stix (I know I'm crazy!) for 12 out of 20 kiddos.  The others immediately got those rat's nests cleaned out.  Hee, hee..

Our reading story this week is The Story of a Bluebird out of Harcourt Trophies.  I made a chart to go with our bird study.   I'm going to try to share it.  Hold on...

Find it HERE

Okay, gonna have to find out how you guys make the picture go to Goggle Docs.  The newbie couldn't get it to work.  :-)

Have a great Monday.  I cannot WAIT to see William Levy on Dancing with the Stars tomorrow night.  

Spring Break starts on Friday at 3:15.  I think I can, I think I can....

Scoot and scoot some more!

Oh my!  I have seen so many posts about this game Scoot so I thought I'd give it a try.  I wrote numbers on their desks with dry erase and left a coin next to the number (very simple because that's how I roll right now).  They had to scoot around and tell me the value of the coin.  We practiced and practiced and practiced how to move around the room, then SCOOT and SCOOT some more.  They absolutely loved it!  I think they would have done it through recess if I'd let them.  It was enlightening as to who is still confusing values.  A few surprised me.

***sigh***  Normally we would be on spring break right now but some genius decided it would be better in April.  Never mind the fact that our last day of school is May 21st.  I need a break now!  I'm about to check half my class in to TattleTale Anonymous!

Tomorrow is Friday eve!